Kaleidoscope
by an-extraordinary-muse
Summary: Roy learns that whatever it is that Oliver and Felicity share, it's a whole lot more than lust. After 3x01, Oliver returns to the lair after dealing with a certain someone. Felicity is there to, quite literally, catch him when he falls. A brief glimpse into a shared moment of grief - and something else. Olicity.


_**Author's Note: I don't know where this came from. It just sort of word vomited its way into existence (when I should have been studying for midterms instead). And I just ... I'm sorry?**_

_**Spoilers: 3x01, The Calm.**_

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**_

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><p><em><strong>Kaleidoscope: Ancient Greek, (kalos), (eidos), (skopeo) – "observation of beautiful forms."<strong>_

Roy Harper knows what lust looks like. After months spent with the people that Oliver refuses to let him collectively refer to as Team Arrow, Roy can perfectly describe the phenomena using only two words: Oliver and Felicity. Watching those two idiots flirt with and pine over each other all summer had given him an ulcer.

Well, maybe not an ulcer exactly, but close enough. Thank God for John Diggle. Roy probably would have suffocated himself with a pillow if he'd had to endure the other two by himself, with no buffer. He knows that Oliver and Felicity are friends, and share some weird bond or whatever, but really – the sooner those two fall into bed and get it out of their systems, the better for everyone (but especially for him). Just get it over with already, he wants to tell them.

The moment Roy realizes that what exists between the vigilante and his tiny blonde friend is more than lust – has probably always been so much more than lust – is the night Oliver gets the bastard that killed Sara Lance.

Digg and Roy retreat to the lair as soon as the mission is finished. Felicity is waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. He can tell that she's relieved to see them, but her eyes keep darting behind them and Roy knows that she's waiting for Oliver to appear.

He doesn't.

Felicity makes both of them swear that their co-conspirator was fine when they left him. She tries to hail him on the communication frequency they share, but doesn't get an answer.

Roy watches his friend – because they are friends, as she won't let him forget – pace anxiously as he moves around the basement. When he glances at Digg he notices the other man doing the same thing. They make eye contact and Roy arches a brow, which Digg answers with a shoulder shrug. Silent communication has become one of their fortes.

Privately, Roy wonders if Oliver is trying to avoid her. He'd been cold to her before they went out, insisting that he had better things to do than grieve for their lost friend. Maybe Oliver feels guilty for the way he acted now; or maybe he's found some dark corner and finally given in to the grief.

On the other side of the room, Digg expels the clip from his sidearm and sets it on the table. The metallic ringing it creates make Felicity spin quickly on her heel; her expression is clearly hopeful. The hope disappears when she realizes that the sound didn't herald Oliver's return.

"What?" she asks when she notices Roy watching.

He shakes his head. "Nothing. I'm sure he's fine."

Felicity nods, but she's not so sure. She takes up her chair and tries to ping his location off the satellites, but doesn't find him. He's gone off the grid, and that only worries her more.

An hour passes and Felicity is lamenting her pronounced lack of ice cream. She could eat her way through a whole gallon of mint chip right now; maybe two. She can't put into words why, but Felicity knows that something is wrong. Just beneath her skin there's a horrible tingling sensation, a succession of small electric shocks that won't give her a second's peace.

She resumes pacing.

Felicity is chewing her thumbnail down to the bed when she hears the door. She spins to face it quickly and waits with bated breath.

Oliver rarely stumbles, but that's the only word that comes to her mind when he finally appears. He looks weary to the bone; his arms hang listlessly at his sides, his bow still loosely held in one hand. His hood is thrown back and his eye mask is gone.

Time is suspended. Felicity doesn't move, too unsure of what she should do. What he wants her to do. So she stands, several feet in front of him, and tries to glean the answers to her unasked questions from his face.

She notices movement and glances down at his free hand: he's alternating clenching his fist and rubbing his thumb over the knuckle of his pointer finger. Felicity recognizes it as the sign of distress – of anxiety – that it is. Oliver doesn't have many tells, but she knows this is one.

Two steps don't cover much distance when they're taken with short legs. Still, Felicity is already moving toward him when he blinks and the corners of his mouth turn down. She knows what's about to happen, feels it instinctually, and rushes to meet him.

"I …" the word comes out hoarse and broken, and Oliver doesn't know what he was going to say anyway. At any rate, he knows that his words won't make a difference – not now.

He watches as Felicity reaches for him, stretching up and clasping her arms behind his neck as her chest collides with his. The smell of her perfume barely registers before the uneven stitches that are virtually holding him together start to fray and come apart.

Oliver cries without making a sound.

He drops his bow in favor of wrapping his arms around Felicity. She's so small she nearly disappears. The heat of her body seeps through his gloves and he presses his fingertips more fully against her, binding himself to her.

Oliver knows that if he could divide his soul into parts, most of them would be grief. He has lost nearly everyone he's ever cared about, and now he's lost Sara – again. The pain is no duller for having to bear it twice. His chest aches; everything aches. The dearly departed form a line in his mind and he sees them all again, grey and formless shadows on a plane that doesn't exist. Not now, at least, not yet.

How cruel it is, he thinks, that the world continues to turn as if nothing has changed. His parents, and Tommy, and Shado, and Sara … why is he alive, when they're not?

When will he stop losing everyone he loves?

Felicity thinks there will be bruises on her sides in the shape of Oliver's hands tomorrow. His shoulders are shaking but he's so quiet, and she'd say something if only she could think of the right words.

They start to sink. Well, Oliver is sinking, and she's in for the ride. They end up in a heap on the floor, Felicity half in his lap and half on the cement. She's never been held so tightly in her life.

Now she's crying as well.

Oliver has to make a concerted effort to drag the tattered seams of himself back together, but he succeeds after a while. Somehow he'd known this would happen. He'd stayed away purposely, wandering the city streets in the hope that the breakdown would come while he was alone. He'd managed to stave off the grief until Sara's killer was dealt with, at least. Oliver had meant what he said: if he grieved, then no one else would get to. His ploy hadn't worked though. The grief had been there, dulling the edges of his senses but refusing to take charge. Maybe there would be no breakdown after all, he'd thought.

He had known he was wrong the moment he'd set eyes on Felicity. She'd clearly been waiting for him. Oliver knows now that he'd been waiting for her as well.

He has always been waiting for her.

Oliver has lived in the grey spaces too long. He's shunned anything but the faintest glimmers of life and love and light, as if that caution can save him in the end. It can't. Caution and mortality cannot coexist, and he's been a fool to think otherwise. There aren't many irrefutable truths in the world, but he knows this one: everything dies.

Felicity takes a deep breath and her ribs expand beneath his fingers; a tangible reminder of life amidst his thoughts of death. Is there no darkness that she cannot shine through? He hopes to never find out.

There are tears on his neck, and her shoulder. Driven by a need that he doesn't understand, Oliver turns his head and presses his face into the bare skin of her neck. He strains to hear her heartbeat; it is strong, and sure, and a little fast. The sound is like a lullaby to him. She is music breathed into being, a song that sings him through the night.

Felicity is the symphony Mozart must have spent his life trying to create.

Oliver wonders if that's how Nyssa feels – felt about Sara. The thought stabs at his insides and he lets loose a shaky breath that heats the skin of Felicity's neck. He has to find a way to tell Nyssa.

The tears have stopped. Oliver knows that it's over, and "it" is so many things; too many to name. Sara is gone, another grey mark on his soul, but they must carry on. And he knows that's what Sara would want.

"Oliver?" Felicity finally manages to whisper. He hasn't moved since hiding his face against her neck, and it frightens her.

Her breath stutters and dies in her lungs as warm lips press what is undoubtedly a kiss against the dip between her neck and shoulder. Then, Oliver raises his head and starts to unwind himself from her.

"Are you hurt?" His voice is like sandpaper.

The question is so absurd that Felicity thinks to lecture him, until it occurs to her that what he's really asking is if he hurt her. She can only shake her head in the negative.

The movement makes her long earrings dance. They're feathers. The light catches in the tiny bevels and reflects a pale imitation of the bright colors of her dress.

So much of Oliver's world is dull and grey, but when he looks at Felicity he thinks that it might not have to stay that way. There is still light within him, and Sara knew it; had known it. She was the first one to tell him to go look for it. In a way the thought makes him want to smile – she had probably been talking about Felicity all along. That was just like Sara: give him the answer to a question he doesn't remember asking.

He can't think about that now, though, because there's work to be done.

Across the room, Roy watches Oliver and Felicity help each other to their feet. The storm is over and the ship is safely in harbor, only he has no idea which of them is the ship and which is the harbor. He supposes that it doesn't really matter.

In the end, all that really matters is that they found each other.


End file.
